I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve ever related to Taylor Swift<\/a> more than when she asked Tom Hanks to sign her \u201cToy Story\u201d VHS tape<\/a> at the June 9 premiere of \u201cToy Story 5.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I was 4 when the original \u201cToy Story\u201d movie was released in 1995, and it was one of the first VHS tapes I remember owning. The plastic case became worn in one corner from being opened and closed and opened and closed, and like Swift, I hung onto it even as movie-watching moved to DVDs and then streaming. For me, the tattered case of the VHS tape was a symbol of the kid I used to be and a reminder of Randy Newman\u2019s iconic lyrics, \u201cYou\u2019ve got a friend in me.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n In today\u2019s franchise-heavy media landscape in which I often bemoan unnecessary prequels and sequels and remakes, \u201cToy Story\u201d feels like a rarity because of the genuine way it has served as a friend, acting as a touchstone for millennials like me who\u2019ve grown up alongside Andy, Woody, Buzz, Jessie and Bonnie. Within this context, \u201cToy Story 5,\u201d a movie that examines the influence of screens on childhood, is the natural continuation of that evolution. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The first movie begins with Andy playing with his favorite toy, a cowboy named Woody, on the day of his birthday party. When Andy runs downstairs for his party, leaving Woody unattended, he sits up, says \u201cthe coast is clear,\u201d and suddenly, the room is in motion with toys driving and walking and talking.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As a kid, I remember loving this moment and the idea that the toys in my own room \u2014 my Polly Pockets and Madeline doll and Beanie Babies \u2014 were also sentient and had a life of their own when I went to school or outside to play in the backyard. There\u2019s a general idea that younger children read to understand the world around them, and I think this same logic applies to the way younger children view movies. I was around Andy\u2019s age, but I was less interested in him than I was in the world that existed inside of his room when he exited the scene. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The life within his room changed the way I saw the world around me, infusing it with creativity and magic. The first \u201cToy Story\u201d became a portal to a new way of looking at objects; they had more possibilities than what I saw on the surface and everything contained its own story. As a kid who loved to write and was beginning to make up her own stories for the first time, this lens was transformational.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n I was also drawn to the complexity within that world after Woody becomes jealous when Andy is gifted a Buzz Lightyear toy and the dynamics of the room change. This toy-focused way of watching the movies was the same for me in \u201cToy Story 2\u201d because I was 8 when the sequel was released. At the beginning of the film, Andy plays with Woody a little too hard and tears off one of his arms. Woody is \u201cdamaged,\u201d and he is afraid that Andy doesn\u2019t want to play with him anymore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Eventually, that becomes true in \u201cToy Story 3,\u201d which premiered the summer before I left for college. In the movie, Andy is also leaving for college, and he must decide what to do with everything in his room, including his old toys: trash, donate, attic or pack. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n Suddenly, I wasn\u2019t a little kid focused on how the movie helped me understand the world around me but a teen seeing how it helped me understand myself. Watching Andy struggle with the transition from kid to adult and what it means to literally put childish things away resonated deeply with me because I was making that same transition. I vividly remember sitting in the theater next to my best friend and crying as Andy gave his toys to Bonnie and played with them for one final time, because my childhood, like Andy\u2019s, was ending, and I felt Andy\u2019s pain at saying goodbye, so he could keep growing up. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n By the time \u201cToy Story 4\u201d came out in 2019, I was officially a grown-up. My daughter was 1, and I was pregnant with my son. She was too young to go see the movie with me in the theater, but I went, and it was the first time I saw myself as one of the parents in the story: Bonnie\u2019s mom. When Woody leaves the gang of toys at the end of the movie to set out on a life of his own with Bo Peep, it seemed to cement the end of the transition that I\u2019d started when \u201cToy Story 3\u201d was released.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But it\u2019s not that simple. I was talking to another mom last weekend who was excited to take her son to \u201cToy Story 5\u201d because it was going to be his first movie in the theater, and she\u2019d also grown up alongside the franchise. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Smarty](\"https:\/\/img.huffingtonpost.com\/asset\/6a395f3c150000d30062038c.jpg?cache=ZA23kd9oyp&ops=scalefit_720_noupscale&format=webp)
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